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Comprehensive Housing Strategy

Comprehensive Housing Strategy

Introducing the 2025-2035 Comprehensive Housing Strategy

Safe and affordable homes are the foundation of a healthy, thriving community. As a service manager for assisted housing and homelessness supports, we are taking bold, evidence-based action to address housing needs in our community.

Our vision

Our 2025–2035 Comprehensive Housing Strategy is a 10-year plan that responds to today’s housing challenges while building toward a more inclusive future.

We are working to ensure that Halton remains a place where everyone - including our most vulnerable residents - can find housing to live, grow, and thrive. Our strategy is:

  • driven by data  
  • informed by lived experience  
  • rooted in community collaboration with our housing partners  

Over the next decade, we will implement multi-solution approaches, build on existing strengths, and engage residents and partners to create sustainable, people-centred housing solutions.

Our priorities

We have identified key priorities that will guide our work over the next 10 years:

  1. strengthening our homelessness response system
  2. protecting and retaining our existing community housing stock
  3. creating new assisted and supportive housing
  4. advocating for increased funding for housing in Halton Region 

Strengthening our homelessness response system

When local housing becomes unaffordable or unavailable, more people turn to emergency shelters, which are operating beyond their intended capacity.

We are expanding our focus on homelessness prevention by helping residents avoid crisis- while also working on creating a more holistic, comprehensive homelessness response system.

Key actions:

  • Providing financial support to help people stay housed (e.g., 2,200 households supported through our Housing Stability Fund in 2023).
  • Expanding housing benefits like the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit, which helped 324 households avoid shelter use.
  • Investing in more targeted supports for at-risk groups like seniors, including rent subsidies, and wellness programs delivered through our Community Wellness Hubs.
  • Continuing street outreach to individuals in encampments, providing ongoing  access to  health and housing support programs.

By reducing pressure on emergency services and investing in long-term stability, we’re building a more coordinated, compassionate housing system.

Today, shelters in Halton are running at 140% capacity, up from 90% just a decade ago.

Protecting, retaining and creating new assisted and supportive housing

While a stronger homelessness response is critical, it cannot replace the need for more affordable housing in our community.

Supportive housing in Halton successfully combines affordable homes with on-site services for residents facing complex health and social needs. This model:

  • reduces reliance on shelters and emergency rooms
  • supports community health, safety and wellbeing
  • provides a more cost-effective solution to create longer-term housing stability 

To keep up to date, visit our current Housing Construction Projects page.

We are addressing the need for more community housing need by both protecting the housing we already have and creating new units.

Since 2021, Halton’s waitlist for community housing has increased by 72%, with over 8,000 households now waiting for an affordable place to live – most of whom earn less than $30,000 per year. 

We’ve identified a need for at least 165 new supportive housing units over the next decade. Projects are already underway, with new housing opportunities opening soon.

Protecting and retaining our existing community housing stock

Keeping our existing community housing in good condition and under non-profit or public ownership is more cost-effective than building new homes from scratch.

From 2025-2035, we are:

  • signing modernized Community Housing Partnership Agreements
  • providing flexible, sustainable funding for operations and capital repairs
  • supporting housing providers to preserve and extend the life of their units

Creating new assisted and supportive housing

To grow our community housing supply in Halton, we are:

  • adding units on Region-owned land
  • purchasing existing properties to convert into affordable housing
  • partnering with non-profits and private landlords
  • exploring innovative construction methods to manage costs and supply issues

Advocating for increased funding for housing in Halton Region

With regional funding, we can create up to 450 new housing opportunities over the next 10 years. With adequate support from provincial and federal governments, we can triple that to create 1,350 new housing opportunities. 

We are calling for:

  • increased federal and provincial investment in housing infrastructure and supports
  • enhanced funding for social assistance programs like Ontario Works 
  • stronger intergovernmental coordination to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in our community 

Learn more

The 2025–2035 Comprehensive Housing Strategy outlines how Halton Region will respond to housing pressures and support residents over the next decade. Download the full strategy:

2025–2035 Comprehensive Housing Strategy (PDF file)

For more information about housing programs, supports, and services in Halton, visit our Housing Supports and Services pages.

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